ON / Mississauga - Executive Centre - 2008-20

[carly]

Well looks like someone can't count because there are 3 chicks that hatched here - or mama had one hidden somewhere

Congratulations MEC management and staff!!

I had the opportunity to to make a quick stop at the MEC nest site today after my presentations in Milton, and as I had suspected,, we have confirmation of a hatch - TIMES THREE!!  The adult male was currently keeping his new family members warm when the adult female arrived shortly after I arrived about 2:30 pm.. The pair did a shift change with the adult female arriving with food to feed her new family.  The hatchlings (approx. 24 to 36 hours old at the oldest) only ate a thimble size portion of food that took the adult female all of 4 minutes to complete feeding all three hatchlings.  Unable to hold their heads up for longer than a few seconds, they were each fed after some coaxing by the adult female.  While the photos that I have added with this post aren’t the best as they were taken with with my point and shoot digital camera of the small TV monitor that displays the live camera image.  Sadly, no leg bands of the either of the adults was observed during this visit.  But its only a matter of time before we get an ID on the happy pair.  Stay tuned……Enjoy!

[carly]

Mark has an update, a terratorial battle and only 2 eggs being incubated now - wow I had no idea!

Mark Nash Reports:
This afternoon I finally got a “peek” at the clutch of  eggs when the adult  male stood up to adjust himself and exposed two dark reddish brown coloured eggs.  Finally my long wait paid off  after utilizing the small monitor that is hooked up to the colour nest box camera.  There are only two eggs  currently being incubated with no sign of the other two eggs in the nest box.   No hatchlings as yet.  I can only speculate that the territorial battles that occurred several weeks ago with the two adult females battling it out for the nest box caused the destruction of the other two eggs that were laid.   While the adult female was no where to be found at this time, I could hear her vocalizing on several occasions throughout the several hours that I was on site.  Stay tuned, - More to come as a hatch is expected in the next week!

[carly]

I've asked Frank in my Monday morning report email if he knows the status of them.  If I hear anything back I will let you all know.  I think all the new pairs, the territorial fights, new pairs displacing old time residents has really thrown everyone for a loop this year...no doubt everything will get straightened out and we'll be back to some sort of normal soon. 

[Loriann]

I saw this on the web page a week or so ago, but no update since tha wicked, wicked wind storm that area had last weekend.. when we were up there the wind was blowing at hurricane speed, over 106 km per hour past the ledge where the birds are.  We saw kids blown off their bikes, a woman into a fence, and more than one piece of furniture blow past us. 

I hope they are okay, because that wind was brutal.  Square one's parking lot looked like a desert war zone that night with all kinds of wind borne debris, sand, and garbage.  There were projeciles coming off the construction site that were dangerously zooming thru the air.  We were driving on Burnhampthorpe right at the hight of the winds, and i could hardly hold my truck straight in the lanes.

fingers crossed for them.. and all who were out that night.

[carly]

2009 NESTING SEASON

From Mark Nash:

!!! Full time incubation is well under way!
April 23, 2009 - Mississauga - Executive Centre
Mark Nash Reports:
Apologizes for the lack of recent updates, but it has been a very difficult spring, (and an early one for the birds for sure). Recent observations of the MEC birds this week would suggest that the pair are in full time incubation with an undisclosed amount of eggs in the nest box. Due to the colder temps and all of the rain and windy conditions, the female has been in hard incubation and not giving us any opportunities to see how many eggs she’s actually incubating. The changing of the guards are happening very quickly and both adults are sticking very tight to the nest bowl. We will continue to monitor as best we can in the hope that the temps will rise, (and that the rain finally stops) so we may get a peak at the secrets that they are hiding. Stay tuned, more to come….

[bev.]

In the issue about harvesting peregrines, with Marks help , I drafted a letter and sent it world wide to  all the cams I knew of and watched and then had my friends of those cams send it to other cams and we gave them an address to write. Of course all we got was a political walk around the park.. but I sure tried .

I got a lot of response from these people and  a lot of letters were sent to
the powers to be in th eUSA

[Loriann]

LOts of merlins around, so maybe .... definite 'helicopter moves',, so maybe ....

[The Peregrine Chick]

If there was a bit of distance between you and the bird it could have been a merlin or an American Kestrel, they both do the dive thing and are falcons .... we get kestrels hunting along the verges of our highways all the time.  They are the only falcon species that can actually hover, the larger ones are actually too large to technically hover though it can look the same if the winds are strong enough to let them hold themselves in place in a "hover".  Great to watch both ways!!

[Loriann]

could be.. i was driving on the highway at the time.. lol

the field is off the highway.. runs along side.. but a distance away.. didn't look like a hawk though... but again.. hard to say when driving.

all i saw was a dive..into some long grass.  and right where i see the pergrines sitting on the light poles..

[The Peregrine Chick]

Hey Loriann, have to ask this ... are you sure it was one of the peregrines or could it have been a cooper's hawk?  Peregrines here (southern Canada) don't eat anything that is ground level as a rule, particularly near roadways as it is way too dangerous.  Cooper's Hawks however are mammal as well as bird killers and they do hunt on verges occasionally.  Another raptor is the  Northern Harrier (Marsh Hawk) and they are the right size and closer in colouration to the peregrines than the Cooper's.

Had to ask as it is unusual behaviour ...

[Loriann]

I was up at the Mississauga Executive centre late yesterday afternoon looking around to see if I could spot anyone.. no luck, but on the way home, saw one of the adults doing a fine imatation of a helecoptor, hovering, then did a super fast dive down into a strip of grass along the 403... I was kind of driving at the time,    so could not see if he/she was successful in the hunt for dinner, but it was good to see one of them. That's the first time in a week or so.

No sign of the kids though.

[The Peregrine Chick]

Somewhere in my files, I will see if I can't dig up Canada's response to the US policy of allowing peregrines to be captured from the wild.  Not sure of the date, but it will certainly outline some of our concerns ...

[eagle63_1999]

I was just wondering though who would think up such a stupid asinine thing anyway? Has humankind already done enough damage to our fine feathered friends? Oh wait yeah it has, and they just wanna be more stupid and drive the birds of Prey to the brink of extinction again *sigh*

[winnipeg_gal]

so the chances of somebody reporting it to see if they can "legally" keep the bird is somewhere between nil and none? 

[The Peregrine Chick]

What Mark Nash told us a few weeks ago when he was here for the Etobicoke banding is that the US has agreed that if they capture a 'Banded Canadian Bird' it will be freed, if it has no band then all bets are off.  He said basically it will be a matter of trust because really they can easily remove the bands if no one is around and no one would know the difference.

It seems the second they take something off the endangered list they immediately start hunting it to extinction all over again   

Just to add a twist ... the only way to find out if its a Canadian bird is to check the band numbers and the only way to do that is to report it to a banding agency who then back tracks through their records and notifies the bander (ie: me).  Some US birds have different coloured bands (Midwest birds are black/green) but most are the same colour as ours.